Monday, December 19, 2016

Donald Trump has obtained the required 270 electoral votes to become president.
Although electors in dozens of states still have to vote, the electoral balloting in Texas
put Trump over the majority threshold, according to a state-by-state
tally by the Associated Press. Thirty-six of the state's electors voted
for Trump, one for John Kasich and one for Ron Paul.
The next, and last, official step in the electoral process is for
Congress to count the votes. Under the procedure set out by the 12th
Amendment to the Constitution, that formal process is scheduled for Jan.
6.
Some anti-Trump activists had hoped against hope
that they could persuade electors in states that voted for Trump to
defect, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
Electors
are nearly all party loyalists. Additionally, they faced more than two
centuries of tradition and, in some states, legal obligations that
called for them to cast their ballots according to which candidate won
the popular vote in their states. No defectors have ever changed the
result of a presidential election. Four electors
today successfully defected in Washington state. Instead of voting
for Hillary Clinton, who won the state's popular vote, three electors
voted for former secretary of State Colin Powell and one voted for Faith
Spotted Eagle, an environmental activist. Electors in two other states
who tried to vote against the state's winner were replaced with
alternates. There may be additional defections in the remaining states,
but since Trump now has a majority of the electoral votes, those
would not be enough to change the result. http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-updates-trump-passes-270-electoral-votes-1482172091-htmlstory.html